Hey Motoki, are you sure the survey is full? I just filled it out fine right now... unless
they lied to me...
<.<
>.>
o.O"
Paranoid much? Anyways... so yeah, I thought the survey was kinda interesting as well. And I wasn't very nice myself. I wasn't exactly
rude per se, but I was very blunt about
not liking "the bugs introduced by Nightlife and the pre-existing and unresolved bugs from University and the base game of the Sims 2" was pretty much how I worded it.
In that section where they asked you which things you liked, you didn't like, and how Nightlife could be improved... well, I was having issues with the survey itself. Sometimes it wouldn't load properly after hitting the next button. So, I since I was afraid that might happen, I typed everything up, and then copied it to notepad before submitting just in case... and it's funny because I wrote tons more for the things I didn't like and how I thought it should be improved.
things I liked 
:
the dating and group outing minigames, the expanded romantic social interactions, going downtown and having more choices and reasons for sims to actually leave their homes.
things I didn't like:
the bugs, both newly introduced by Nightlife and those pre-existing and unresolved from University and the base game of The Sims 2. The gypsy matchmaker doesn't produce really good matches, even after paying full price (returns poor matches that seems to ignore turn ons and turn offs, etc.). The limitations/reductions in the number of sims you can invite over for parties. Removal of the censorgrid "cheat" and imposing the censor blur upon paying customers who should have the option to play the game however they wish. The limited choice in clothing, hairstyles, and decorative objects.
my suggestions on how it should be improved:
Fixing all reported bugs, both newly introduced by Nightlife AND those pre-existing bugs from University and the base game of the Sims 2. Removing the censor or reinstating the censorgrid "cheat." Add more "useable" content! A lot of the "new" content, from clothing to hairstyles and objects are just plain ugly. If EA/Maxis is unwilling to develop/design its own content that is actually nice to look at, why not "hire" or request custom content to be made by the community, and include those as part of future expansions. Something similar to the clothing contest done for Nightlife. The community always makes better looking clothes, hairstyles, and objects. Also, the game needs More career choices, that are COMPLETE with chance cards for every level, and there should be MORE Wants and LIFETIME WANTS associated with each new career. The university career lifetime wants should be reinstated. There should be a similar object to the ReYuNu Orb that allows sims to change their Aspiration or perhaps randomly re-roll their Lifetime Wants. This would solve issues of sims potentially getting "stuck" with unfulfillable LTWs. LTWs should be based on "personality" and "interests" so that those things are actually useful. It would be nice to see more LTWs, with more variety, and more careers with the accompanying, appropriate LTWs. Perhaps LTWs can change for Sims when they trasition to an Adult. This would be another way to prevent Teen sims from getting "stuck" with unfulfillable LTWs if the user/player decides NOT to send a sim to University. In this way, the game should detect this, or perhaps due to a dialog warning box, when transitioning from teen directly to an adult, the game would warn the user that it is their last chance to send the sim to University, and if the user chooses NOT to send, the game should be SMART enough to reroll the LTW and EXCLUDE ANY LTW that requires a University degree. One of the things I always looked forward to in the EPs for the original Sims 1 were the new careers. New majors would be nice as well, and there should be sets of new careers with some that require a University degree, and some that don't, in order to give the user/player more choices.
Anyways, in hindsight, I forgot to mention other stuff, which now eludes me. Just more stuff I wanted to complain about. Probably about wanting new majors and new careers and LTWs. That really bugs me that, at least with the Sims 1 EPs, there were usually always new careers, and I really wanted to have that again with Nightlife. I was hoping they'd add more careers and more majors. I definately think there should be way to add more careers, and there should be some that require a Uni degree, and some that don't. And it seems backassward that some of that jobs that don't require them should, and vice-versa. You need a degree to be an Icon but you don't for a Doctor?
In my not so humble opinion, they should "fix" that with a patch, and make certain jobs require degrees like in real life.
Oh, now I remember. I think I wanted to gripe and complain about needing/wanting more interactions for children and teens, and perhaps even babies and toddlers? But more importantly, children and teens, because they need more stuff to do. I guess its great that teens can do almost the same kinda stuff that adults can do, for the most part. I'd also like to see children do more interesting stuff, because they seem limited in what you can do with them, and they tend to be boring to play. Aside from using them as live-in maids and basically pre-teen skill-building for those oh so easy to get scholarships, they're mostly useless.
Oh, and the other thing I wanted to complain about was just how ridiculously, ludcriously, insanely, retardedly uber easy it is for sims to be furious with each other, like all the frucking time now. It is just totally insane and over the top. Now... I haven't really played extensively enough to know how the furious thing works, but from what I've "heard" or read thus far, it seems that, like jealousy, sims can break out into fury over the smallest slight now.
I don't know if the game differentiates between degrees of fury, like are sims
more furious over cheating versus being messy? In other words, if a sim gets furious over cheating, does that last longer or is more permanent or relationship damaging than if a sim is just really anally neat and pissed off that their spouse is an uber sloppy pig?
Thus far, I've only play tested the Caliente house with only alien abduction related hacks (twojeffs', my own tweak of almecho's, and the spaceship carpool bugfix I made for myself), and in that house alone, after proposing and marrying Mortimer Goth into the household, and then commandeering Don Lothario with the boolprop "make selectable" cheat, leaving the sims on their own, things eventually always fall apart. In any of the various combinations, someone is always catching someone else cheating. Either Dina or Nina flirts with Don, and Mortimer sees, or Don flirts with Nina or Dina, and the other sister sees, and anyways, whatever the combination, all hell breaks loose and its just downhill from there. From that point on, the household breaks into a fight like almost every hour on the hour. It was hella funny at first, and it still kinda is funny, but well, it is just super uber annoying. And having to try and apologize every hour on the hour is also super ridiculous. Just getting sims back down to a 0 instead of a negative relationship takes too long. And even then, the sims are still 1/3 to 3/4 furious with the other. And then the fact that apologizing still works somewhat backasswards adds even more to my OWN fury.
Anyways, I really wish I had mentioned this. I mean, its great now that sims can Actually make enemies and/or rivals. But the breaking out into fights ALL the frickin' time is just totally out of control. There has to be
some kind of moderation. Sims constantly want to poke each other or slap each other or attack each other
all the time!!! It's really ridiculous. I mean, I'm all up for fights and fighting between friends and temporarily being upset with each other. But if the fury thing is a blanket thing, and the relationships always drops so negatively, then it really is totally imbalanced.
Anyways, that's all been complained about already. As far as the survey stuff and new EP related questions and what not, I'm also not very interested in the Open for Business thing. I mean, on the one hand, at least it is a bit new in a sense. It looks like something that was promised at least something that should have been in the Sims Online. I never played that, so I can't say one way or another whether that was good or bad. *shrugs* And although I did have Makin' Magic, I never even really played it all that much. I bought all those EPs, and the last one I really enjoyed was Superstar. Then my computer crashed, and I although I reinstalled everything, I sorta just lost interest. I started to play Makin' Magic after creating a Tara and Willow couple to play with. But by then, Sims 2 was coming out around the corner, and then when I got that, I totally abandoned the Sims 1.
Now Open for Business is kind of cool still, in that it might be cool to run your own business and "build an empire" or whatever. And that funny bit about hiring and firing employees, trying to please customers, catching slackers and workers who steal from you?!?!?
Maxis really has a
weird sense of humour. All of it sounds cute, and it is kinda neat to sort of have this notion that you can build your own Microsoftic conglomeratesque
evil "empire" or at least that's what it made it seem like from the description. Regardless, I don't think that will really hold my attention. Especially since I'm not into the building aspect of the game as I am more interested in the social interactions. The building part: making houses, buying and arranging furinture, and decoratig, while it can be fun at times to be creative, it is mostly a
chore for me, because once again, I don't feel like I have talent or an "eye for design" as it were. So if anything, I feel like all my houses are ugly square boxes.
And although you are given "free reign" to be as creative as you like, that really is a lie, because it almost seems that
creativity is inversely proportional to
proper functionality . If you go to all this trouble, having to use cheats and whatever, just to build a nice looking house, something will be
wrong with the design, in that some "flaw" will prevent your sims from being able to enter rooms properly (diagonal doors anyone?) or use furniture proper (island kitchens/bars anyone?) and things that you expect to work a certain way won't and things that look nice, well they look nice, but they just aren't "efficiently" positioned for optimum utilization by your sims. So in the long run, all that time and energy spent on being creative gets wasted when you realize that you have to move something into some ugly, awkward looking position just so that sims have proper access.
So... with that in mind, I don't think I'd like the idea of having to build my own stores and what not. I'll probably have to stick to and/or download any pre-fab/pre-made houses/buildings.
And for other EPs? Well... things that I'd like to see, I really wish we coulda picked more than 5 choices for that, but my top 5 were, in no particular order:
1) health and sickness - Anything to add more realism, and plus sims are like always healthy, and recover fairly quickly or at least fairly easily from being sick. I suppose that's fair in a sense, since the lifespan of a sim is pretty short anyways, so one or two sicknesses is actually comparable to real life, if you look at it that way. But still, I'd actually like to see the possibility of random deaths, like due to an MI or like actually being sick over time.
2) weather and seasons - Again more realism, and I just find it disturbing that it is constantly sunny and warm all year round for my sims. What I really love about Animal Crossing is that they have weather and seasons, albeit, a bit simplified, but it exists nontheless. It seems that they should be able to do something similar with that for the Sims 2. I know it's a bit difficult since sim time doesn't really have a sense of months or years, and it just has like a magical infinitum of weeks. But still, it would be nice to see rain or snow. On the other hand... I can just imagine what all kinds of bugs this might introduce... maybe I should rethink this.
3) Zoos and amusement parks and whatever else they mentioned - Again more reaslism and more reasons for my sims to leave their boring houses.
It was either this or Going on Vaction/Holiday with your sims. I chose this because the Vacation idea was already done, and I'm assuming/hoping this would just eventually get implemented later anyways. I don't remember/know how Vacation worked in the original sims, even though I had it, I hardly ever played that EP. But I would like Vacations to actually require sims to build up some vacation time. And then, sims could go on vacation, with their family (if their spouses have vacation too) and while they are away, their vacation days get used up and they get paid for it, just as if they had opted to stay home and use a vacation day.
4) Walk in the neighborhood and visit other houses - Again more reaslism (always with the realism
) and I just want to be able to visit neighbors and family members. They already have it so that you can see those other houses, which is a step in the right direction. And since you can invite visitors over, why can't you go over to their house and act as a "visitor" yourself? I think it should be sort of like visiting a community lot, in that all other sims are non-controllable and things wouldn't save when you leave their house and go back home. So just like on a comm lot, you can't go into buy mode and change anything, and when you leave, its not like anything should be saved for that comm lot. In this way, when you visi a neighbor or family member(s)' house, it wouldn't affect that house's lot/game. So it's not like when you go there, you would find the house/lot in the state that it was saved in. Rather, you would go there, and depending on what time/day it is, the members of that lot would either be home or away at work/school. The game would only allow you to visit if a valid member of the household would be home, that way you couldn't just be a visitor at a house that the sims are supposed to be away at work or school for the time frame that you are playing with the current household. And, when you are visiting a lot, you are the only sim that is selectable/playable, and the other sims act as uncontrollable sims, just like on a comm lot. You can then ask a sim on that lot if you can spend the night, for sleep overs or nightcaps
otherwise, if it gets too late, you will get a message where a sim says, "It's getting late, thanks for stopping by, but I think I'm going to head to bed now. Goodnight." Or something like that, and then a taxi automatically comes for you, and you are forced to leave, or your sim is forced to get into their car and drive home. Your playable sim should be able to leave any time before then, either by driving home in their car, or calling a taxi via their cell phone, or the only option on the present lot's house phone. If the house is ghetto and doesn't have a phone, then you'll have to wait until night time before the game automatically sends you home.
Maybe, to keep from starving, you could still order delivery, or you could Ask to? or Influence a sim to cook dinner.
5) I chose Other and filled in with two things:
a. go to school or highschool for children or teens. Again I just want more interactions for them so that they are more interesting to play. I would be neat to have teens go to school/class, and you could interact with other students or teachers. You could have after school activities, such as clubs, sports, or academic teams. You could hang out with friends, have cafeteria food fights, go to school events (games, debates, dances, the prom). And for children, again just something else to do other than be boring.
b. big apartments - It would be neat to actually have apartment buildings and have multiple sims and apartmenties
living in a big building. I like Inge's idea of apartments and having ownable doors and what not. I think that would be really cool and be more realistic, especially for living in the Downtown area. Something similar to the dormies of Uni, but sims would have whole apartments or floors or whatever, rather than just one tiny room.
While the idea of pets and animals is nice, it's not a priority for me. And although the idea of like bonus fun packs or whatever they were called, I can't frickin remember right now
but the packs like the forthcoming Holiday pack, although they are nice. I can foresee it being a mess for those who don't want to buy all these new flavor mini-paks or whatever. Especially when people start modding or making recolours of them and you don't have them all. 75 items only for 20 bucks?!?! In my not so humble opinion, I would feel that the EPs themselves should be 20$ each. Ok...
maybe 30 at most. The mere fact that it is required to have the base game in the first place to play them, I feel that 40 bucks for each new EP is a bit much. And 20$ for only minor expansions seems way too pricey as well. If it was 15, I think that's slightly better, but 10$ is probably most certainly way too cheap and just wishful thinking.
I definately would love to see better fashion: better clothes And hairstyles. I mean come on, despite the number of selections, the variety is extremely Lacking, AND the choices you have to begin with are pretty much ALL crappy.
So, it's not like you
really have a "choice" anyways. You basically end up with picking between like 3-5 hairstyles or clothes, and everything else is just totally fugly.
Well, that's alls I gots to bitch about for now. I think I'm gonna take a short cat nap before I have to get up and meet my friend for lunch.
Ste
PS. Oooh, ooh! Je parle francais aussi, mais j'ai oublie beaucoup de ma vocabulaire. Je comprends tout. Il est tres difficile quand tu ne te souviens pas les mots corrects. Je voudrais pratiquer, mais je n'ai quelqu'un avec quoi je peut faire ca.
Mon mari, il est francais (il est ne au Morac), mais il arretais parler francais quand il avais ver 5 ans. Alors, nous ne pouvions pas parler francais bien avec nous memes. Donc, je vais avoir un petit dormi parceque j'ai sommeil un peu. A toute a l'heure.
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